


Sing It Now, Sing It Somehow

by cowboykylux



Series: Zannah's 12 Days of Oneshots [10]
Category: Marriage Story (2019)
Genre: F/M, Family Fluff, Hanukkah, Hanukkah Fluff, Jewish Reader, Mind & Soul 'Verse, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:15:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21979432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cowboykylux/pseuds/cowboykylux
Summary: You snore, but that’s okay. He’s pretty sure he snores too, he’ll have to ask you when you’re up. He has so many things he wants to ask you, tell you, all the time. But most of it has to wait, too much of it still too raw, too soon.It doesn’t matter right now, he’s got you in his arms, and you’re starting to stir awake just from your internal clock. You always were an early riser, it was one of the thousands and thousands of things that Charlie loved about you. And when you scrunch your face up against the sun that hits your closed eyes as it rises higher and higher, he adds that one to the list too.
Relationships: Charlie (Marriage Story)/Reader
Series: Zannah's 12 Days of Oneshots [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1569352
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	Sing It Now, Sing It Somehow

_What’s it about?_

_Seems kinda weird._

_Something to do with the fight about love._

_If that’s what it is,_

_Well I hope they win._

_For what is a life,_

_If it’s lived,_

_Without love?_

He’s got you in his arms, when he blinks awake. Your skin, sleep warmed and soft under his palms, the steady rise and fall of your shoulders from the breathing that Charlie keeps in time is a soothing lull to consciousness. The sun is barely peeking over the horizon of the suburban neighborhood when you roll over into his embrace, and he welcomes you, welcomes you into his arms, tucks you in against him and lets out a content sigh.

You snore, but that’s okay. He’s pretty sure he snores too, he’ll have to ask you when you’re up. He has so many things he wants to ask you, tell you, all the time. But most of it has to wait, too much of it still too raw, too soon.

It doesn’t matter right now, he’s got you in his arms, and you’re starting to stir awake just from your internal clock. You always were an early riser, it was one of the thousands and thousands of things that Charlie loved about you. And when you scrunch your face up against the sun that hits your closed eyes as it rises higher and higher, he adds that one to the list too.

He’s about to kiss you awake like always, when the door flings open and your eyes snap open, the both of you startled and yanking the covers up over your naked bodies so Charlie’s eight year old son doesn’t see your bare chest and is traumatized forever.

“Dad, (Y/N)!” He greets you both too loudly, seemingly entirely unaware of the state of undress the both of you are in.

“Shit – Henry, what did I say about knocking before coming in?” Charlie scrubs his face with his hand, groans and stretches into the day as you clutch the sheets around your body.

“Is it today? Can we celebrate today?” Henry is bright eyed and bushy tailed, for all intents and purposes. He’s got the biggest toothiest smile on your face that makes you smile, even more so when Charlie asks,

“Celebrate what, honey?” With a crack and pop of his neck and shoulders.

“Hanukkah!” Henry laughs, like his dad was being silly, was being difficult on purpose.

You smile so warmly, stretch the sleep from your calves and reach over to pick your phone up off the side-table, check the time. It was definitely the right day this time, you think with a fond chuckle to yourself, remembering how Charlie and Henry had worked so hard to throw a surprise celebration a few weeks back, not realizing the different dates.

“Yes – ” You say, and he immediately gets ready to start bouncing off the walls, so you have to put a finger up for a specification, “ – _but_ that’s not until sundown.”

“When’s sundown?” Henry groans with a frown, entirely too much like his father, and Charlie is sitting up now shuffling himself against the headboard, careful to keep the sheets up around his stomach and hips.

“Like six o’clock.” He says, making him groan even louder. “But you and I are going to go out and run errands in a bit to get the stuff for it all, okay?” Charlie tries to make it better, and you help to sweeten the deal.

“Why don’t you go get dressed and I’ll make some breakfast for us and we can all plan it out. How does that sound?” You ask Henry, who then looks between the two of you excitedly once more.

“Can we have waffles?” He asks. He loves your waffles, and every time its your turn to make breakfast, they’re always the first thing he requests.

“I’m going to make something even better; challah french toast.” You tell him in a whisper, like it’s some big special secret, and his eyes go wide at the foot of the bed, never having heard of that before.

“What’s challah?” He asks, trying to pronounce it the same but getting it kind of wrong in a way that doesn’t really matter, not this early anyway.

“It’s that pretty bread you liked two weeks ago, the one that looks braided, remember?” You try and jog his memory.

“Yes -- okay!” He races out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him, letting you and Charlie sink back down into the mattress with an embarrassed laugh.

You don’t say anything to one another, not yet. You only roll yourself over so that you’re leaning on his stomach, chin propped up on your hands that are propped up on his chest, and he takes both of his hands and smooths them down the sides of your head, tucking your hair behind your ears and smiling apologetically at his son’s behavior.

You press a kiss to his chest, the spot right between his pecs where the muscles create a little dip between them. Charlie slides his hands down your back, holds you against him, but you have no intention on going anywhere, not for a while anyway. 

_Sing it now, sing it somehow._

_Sing it to the dark in your darkest hour._

_Sing it to the mountain till the mountain falls,_

_Falls into the ground_

_Doesn’t make a sound_

_Doesn’t make a sound._

At the store, things aren’t nearly as hectic as they were last time. Charlie knows where everything is that he needs, all the ingredients and whatever else exactly where they were last time. Except this time things are in much shorter supply because it’s actually the holiday now, actually the right time to be celebrating.

“How come there’s so much more Christmas stuff?” Henry asks, and Charlie sighs.

“Christmas does kind of take over, doesn’t it?” Charlie answers with a question of his own, a little annoyed at the huge display of red and green, and the tiny corner of blue and silver.

He never paid any attention to it before, but now that he goes looking for it, now that he opens his eyes and his mind up to trying to see it, he gets frustrated. Henry does too, and for whatever reason that makes Charlie proud, proud that he’s raising his son to be more open, more compassionate.

He wonders if Nicole ever gave a shit about Hanukkah, but then again, why would she?

He makes a mental note to have Henry call her later, just so she can’t complain that she hasn’t heard from him in a while.

“Dad?” Henry asks, seemingly for the second time, and Charlie snaps out of his daze, looks at his son who is raising an eyebrow at him in that way only eight year olds can really get away with.

“Sorry, what’s up?” Charlie asks, shaking the frustration away as Henry points behind him.

“You passed the applesauce.” He says, and Charlie lets out a deep breath.

“Applesauce, yes.” Charlie says, switches back into happier thoughts, thoughts of you.

“And sour cream.” Henry reminds him too, making Charlie nod, getting more and more into gear, into celebrating mode.

“And sour cream.” He agrees, as the two of them make their way back down the store. 

_For what is a life,_

_If it’s lived,_

_Without love?_

Dinner is a loud affair, loud and exciting. Charlie and Henry help you cook – they chop vegetables together in the kitchen as you’re stationed by the stove, careful of the hot oil as you fry up crispy lacy edged latkes. The roast is in the oven and music is playing courtesy of the Alexa that somehow knew about a Hanukkah station on Spotify.

There’s so much laughter in the house, in the kitchen, that Charlie managed to forget what the holiday is actually about. It isn’t until you’re all sitting at the table, and Henry asks, and you explain, that he remembers it’s about love and faith and hardship, that it’s about survival and perseverance and justice.

Despite it all, despite the too-many attempts at genocide, you’re still here. You’re still celebrating, and what’s more is you’re celebrating with him, with Charlie. You’re patient with him when he storms out of the room after losing dreidel _again,_ his son laughing and rolling his eyes at his dad who would always be competitive, so it would seem.

The food is good, too good, and Charlie wolfs it down like he’s never going to eat again – and with the amount of oil that you used to cook with, he’s not so sure he will – much to your amusement and Henry’s embarrassment. There’s something that really warms his heart about that, Charlie thinks, about how Henry wants you to like him, wants you to stay. 

Charlie wants you to stay too.

From the look in your eye, and from the way you bend over to whisper something funny into Henry’s ear, no doubt at his expense for being such a sore loser at a game of chance, he knows you’re not going anywhere.

_Sing it now, sing it somehow._

_Sing it to the dark in your darkest hour._

_Sing it to the mountain till the mountain falls,_

_Falls into the ground_

_Doesn’t make a sound._

At night, after the candles have burned away into small pools of oil in the bottom of the hanukkiah, after Henry has fallen asleep with a stomach full of kugel and latkes and too much gelt, after the world outside has quieted, do you and Charlie retreat to bed.

This is something special, he knows. The first night of the holiday, yes, but the first night of what he hopes are many holidays. He can’t stop thinking about it, can’t stop imagining doing this year after year with you. You’ve only been officially openly dating for a few months, only been out in the public eye together for a little while…but he’s loved you for so long, he can hardly believe that he has you.

Wonders how the fuck he got so lucky to have you want him back, so lucky that you’ve decided to keep him.

Him and his broken heart and his tense family and his history and all the baggage from his past, all the baggage that keeps getting brought up and up and up by a woman three thousand miles away.

He won the lawsuit, but in a lot of ways, it still feels like he lost.

But then again, in the end of it all, he thinks about all that he gained from the bullshit that had been the past year, all the bullshit from the divorce and the separation and the fights. He had his son, his had his job in New York, and he had you.

And really, as long as he had that, he’d be okay.

You kiss him, knowing what he’s thinking. You kiss him and he opens up to you, lets his soul pour out into your mouth, the honey sticky sweet of your lips encouraging him to relax, to hum against your tongue. Your eyelashes tickle his cheek where they brush up against him, and he almost wants to cry when you pull him into a hug, your legs slipping between his, the two of you tangling up under the sheets.

He kisses you, and he tries to put away the thoughts for now, hell bent on enjoying this time with you, this special sacred time that you’ve chosen to share with him and his son. But his son is asleep, and you’re very much awake, and when you grin against his own smile, when you roll onto your back and pull him on top of you, he knows.

He’s okay.

_Sing it now, sing it somehow._

_Sing it to the dark in your darkest hour._

_Sing it to the mountain till the mountain falls,_

_Falls into the ground_

_Doesn’t make a sound._

**Author's Note:**

> This is the last Charlie oneshot in this small series, but not to fear -- there's plenty of Charlie soon to come in my fix-it fic, lol, 'Mind & Soul'!
> 
> This story is part of my 12 Days of Oneshots, where every day leading up to the first night of Hanukkah and Christmas Eve, there will be a short oneshot around 2k in length of our favorite boys! Each oneshot is based off my favorite holiday songs, but you won't know who gets which until the day it's posted!
> 
> Be sure to join in the fun over on my tumblr, where you can see the masterlist for the series and, if you'd like, guess which character gets which song in the upcoming days :)
> 
> Wishing you all very happy holidays this year <333


End file.
